The present invention relates to a salvage liquidation system and a method to liquidate salvage goods efficiently. More particularly the invention relates to a system and method to auto-match buyers with salvage goods; auto-ship the salvage goods to the buyer; and to produce an invoice and effect automatic payment of the invoice from the buyers financial institution or designated payor to the sellers designated financial institution or payee.
Large retail sellers of goods require outlets for excess stock, returns and salvaged products. In general, such retailers sell off the unwanted products to liquidators who assemble lots for resale to one or more buyers who in turn sell the products at a discount.
In a typical transaction, a large retail seller such as Sears, Target, K-Mart and the like contract with a liquidator who agree to accept excess goods from the retailer. The liquidator locates one or more potential buyers and offers the goods to them. Locating the potential buyers may be done by on-line advertising, telephone communications or whatever is workable in the shortest amount of time.
In some transactions, the liquidator does not take title, but simply receives a commission for selling the goods. Alternatively, the liquidator may take title and seek out buyers who will take the goods at a mark up which the liquidator takes as profit. The buyer receives the goods and pays the contract price. The payments are processed either by the retailer who pays the commission or by the liquidator directly.
In either situation, there are transaction costs associated with finding a buyer, negotiating a price, shipping the goods and processing the payments. These costs occur each time the goods are processed. In order to reduce transaction costs, goods may be packaged in lots, e.g. pallet loads, truck loads, container loads, whereby large quantities of goods are processed in bulk.
Unfortunately, even with efficiency achievements realized using bulk processing, there are still significant transaction costs, because each sale requires the liquidator to find a buyer, negotiate a price, ship and process payments.
In addition to the cost associated with processing the sale of such goods, it is often necessary to move goods from the retailer into storage until lots can be assembled. Storage involves extra handling and consequently adds to the transaction cost.
Some retailers have goods which are available for only a short period of time, e.g. excess seasonal goods or perishable goods. Others may have to liquidate products on an ongoing basis, like returns. Each situation requires a different strategy for most efficiently liquidating the goods.
In addition, it is important to maximize the monetary return for the liquidated goods. For example, it is advantageous to liquidate the goods at the highest possible price. However, it may be more advantageous to liquidate the goods as quickly as possible in order to reduce finance charges. Other considerations may require different strategies as well. In any event, there are many factors which can affect the amount realized in any particular situation.
Ideally, it would be beneficial if the liquidator could avoid the intermediate handling step and arrange for the direct shipment of the goods from the retailer to the buyer. This is often not practical. Sometimes truckloads of goods can be received by the liquidator at a reshipping or distribution center, whereupon the goods may be stored, or repackaged or sorted into one or more loads. If the goods are in immediate demand by the buyers, some of the repackaged goods may be loaded for direct shipment to such buyers without placing them into storage. Accordingly, there are methods which alleviate the management of salvage goods, but no method exists which can address the many problems and inefficiencies which are attendant to the salvage liquidation business.
Also, the automated solutions offered by the prior art involves multiple negotiations, no prior decision is possible in the systems of the prior art. Therefore, it does not result in reducing the carrying cost.